Parser::replaceLinkHolders is called, which calls LinkHolderArray::replace on $Parser->mLinkHolders to replace link placeholders with actual links, in the buffer Placeholders created in Skin::makeLinkObj()

Next, the text is language converted (when applicable) using the convert method of the appropriate Language object.

Parser::replaceTransparentTags is called, which replaces transparent tags with values which are provided by the callback functions in $Parser->mTransparentTagHooks. Transparent tag hooks are like regular XML-style tag hooks, except they operate late in the transformation sequence, on HTML instead of wikitext.

Sanitizer::normalizeCharReferences is called, which ensures that any entities and character references are legal for XML and XHTML specifically.